Purpose
by ElocinMuse
Summary: Series of oneshots revolving around Booth's "purpose" both by his accounts, and they accounts of others.
1. To Value

**Author's Note: I'm not dead!**

**Summary: Tag for Pain in the Heart. I always get so sick of people blaming and bashing Booth for everything in this episode. Well... what the heck about him? It wasn't like he was away at Summer Camp. Seriously. **

**The companion piece to this specific shot should be up later tonight. **

* * *

He's in the middle of his kitchen, a little directionless, when he hears the knock at his door.

He doesn't react right away. He's trying to decide what to bring over, if he should order a pizza or Thai or just beer. Or nothing. He doesn't know, for once, how to behave in this situation. It's a little daunting, he has to admit, but really… all he wants is to just be with her.

He hates to think that she's angry at him. It makes a cold fist seize his heart and a knot twist painfully in his stomach. There's a separate ache, though, too. One he hasn't been able to identify yet.

He's tired. The knock comes again.

He blinks out of his thoughts, but not entirely. Uncertainly, he approaches his door and momentarily disregards his original motivations.

He's noticeably surprised to see her. He thinks it shows on his face, but is too confused to conceal it. Her dark hair is still in limp curls—all the limper with the time of night—and there are sad circles under her soft eyes.

"Angela?" he utters. He forgets to invite her in, but she speaks before he can amend his neglect of manners.

"Hey, Booth," she says quietly. It's chilly, but she seems tired as he to not bother tugging her coat closer around her slim shoulders.

There's a silence that's not exactly awkward, but makes them both shift a little uncomfortably. Booth breaks first. He is always first to break. "Um… I was just—I was going to head over Bones' place…" It's a feeble, disgrace of a sentence, but he's too exhausted and too puzzled by her presence to offer anything more than that.

There's a dull throb aggravating his shoulder and he remembers he hasn't taken any painkillers today. He's a little faint because of it, and the threat of a headache comes with it. He's tough. He's one of the first to admit that. But these past few days… _weeks_… have been hell.

He thinks he won't come home tonight. Just crash on Bones' couch, if she'll let him.

He wants to be close to her. He'd been away from her against his inclination for two weeks. Away from his son, his friends. He'd been released from the hospital almost immediately, had been forced to recover from a pretty damn severe gunshot wound under the roof of a glorified shack in the middle of nowhere, and three days after he was able to _walk_ was then expected to attend his own funeral to catch the bad guy.

The icing on the cake was the pressure of that rifle on his still bruised and tender shoulder, the wrestle match that left him dizzy and wanting to empty the contents of his stomach in the barren casket or behind that tree he'd been standing by, and then the awesome right-hook from his dearly missed partner that finally knocked his beaten form to the ground.

Head spinning and body throbbing with pain, confused and stung by her greeting, he'd sat there in the grass for almost ten minutes. Not because he desired a sea level ground for contemplation, but because he wasn't sure he could stand up.

He'd been so deliriously happy to see her. But the punch she'd heatedly delivered left him shaken and hurting.

Cam came over and slapped him. Thankfully not on the face, but on the back of the head. Before he could form together a "what the hell?" she'd been gone, too.

Angela seemed lost in the middle of the small gathering, her expression mirroring her posture. Caroline was uncharacteristically clutching at her chest in what appeared to be relief, he dared hope. She tossed her hat on the ground and made off with a stomp, muttering, "Damn fool," over and over. Sweets… waved at him. Seriously, what the hell?

Zack, as always, appeared observant. With that open-mouthed intensity and furrowed brow. Uncertainly, he followed after Cam and the others.

The crowd began clearing out, and Booth was left alone in the grass. His eyes swept over the place of his false funeral, dazed expression becoming more and more disconsolate. The roses that had rested on his casket were fallen now in crude disarray, some of the petals crumpled. The circle of chairs were all empty.

The wind blew the idle bulletin with his picture frame over into the grass. It broke the silence like a gunshot, but he didn't hear it. Couldn't.

Could barely form a thought, much less a sensory response.

Suddenly, a shadow fell over him, and he looked up bleakly in disorientation.

"Hey, man," Hodgins said gently. "Need a hand up?"

Booth swallowed the sudden and unacceptable lump that formed in his throat. The Bug Man's hand extended out, his blue eyes kind. Concerned, even. Unsteadily, Booth reached up to accept it. "Um, yeah. Thanks."

With a heave, the shorter man tugged the agent to his feet. Booth felt a nauseating wave of lightheadedness take hold of his bearings. With a lurch, he sunk against Hodgins with embarrassing dependency.

"Easy, big guy," Hodgins said, struggling for a brief moment to keep him upright. He was entirely too pale for Hodgins' liking. "You all right? Do you need to sit down?" He tried not to notice the way the agent's hands were shaking beneath those foreign white gloves.

"Um…" Booth found himself involuntarily gripping at the smaller man's arm for support before he became more at ease on his own two feet. "No, I think I'm good. I just need… just need my daily drug dose, is all," he attempted pitifully at humor. He winced at the intense bolt of pain that shot through his chest as his shoulder was jostled. "Wasn't able to take it this morning with the… you know, with the scheduling of funeral crashing."

"Yeah. Gotcha."

The lump was back. "Bones… she…"

Hodgins wanted to cringe in sympathy at the lost, kicked puppy look that now assumed the agent's expression. He feared he might have allowed the passing flicker of it across his face. Dude. This was bad. He figured it'd do more damage than not if he beat around the bush. "You know she didn't know, right?"

That was so obviously not the case, Hodgins realized with a sinking in his gut at the anguished look the other man suddenly wore.

Now he wanted her to punch him again. "Oh God."

And _now_… he was staring in flummoxed dazedness into the eyes of his partner's best friend. He hoped she wasn't here to slap him too, but he was pretty sure he deserved it.

_Waste of time._

If only he'd been able to contact her.

_I knew that funeral was a waste of time._

The unidentified ache intensifies, unbidden. He frowns.

He'd been so out of it he probably wouldn't have been able to call her even if he'd _wanted_ to. Needed to. But he knew also that if he'd been aware of her being in the dark, forced to grieve unnecessarily at another person close to her gone, he'd sure as hell have _tried_. Trippy pain meds, trippy _pain_ in all its agonizing glory, immobility and all. He'd have _tried_.

Anything for her. How could she not see that?

Did that bullet they'd had to carve out of his chest mean nothing?

The woman he'd took it for, had almost sacrificed his life for, the person he cared for most in the universe other than his child, thought the ceremony of his passing to be a waste of her time.

Ache. In the back of his mind, in the back of his heart. _There_, and hurtfully escalating.

"I figured you'd be headed there," Angela's quiet voice shatters his thoughts once again.

He nods. He doesn't know why. _Everyone_ knows that's where he'd be headed.

Hell, he'd even _said_ it, if anyone was on the fence about it.

"You should be with Hodgins," he finds himself saying in response. Not an order, or suggestion, or point of obligation, but an observation. He wonders why she isn't with her fiancé, but here with him.

_Changing the subject is a way to avoid your feelings_, Sweets' voice fills his head. Stupid kid. Twelve-year-olds shouldn't be so wise. It was unnatural.

Angela releases a shaky breath and nods quickly, looking down at her feet. "Yeah, I was just headed over to his place. I told him I had to make a quick side trip."

"Oh."

He doesn't know if he's supposed to say something. He stands aimlessly, goes to put his hands in his pockets, but stops and looks around. His eyes search out his feet, too.

"That's good that you're going to her," Angela says. She nods again. It seems to help solidify her statement, or all the things she's saying. He isn't sure.

When is he ever not sure?

"Yeah." He thinks that maybe a speech is coming on what an idiot he is for not telling Bones, not calling her.

He hadn't been able to call his son, either, he wants to despair. Explain. Or his family. _No_ contact, _whatsoever_. Two weeks of being alone. Hurting, disoriented. Missing everyone he cared about. A single day in such circumstances could feel like a decade. He knew that all too well. All too keenly, even now—miles and years away from that foreign prison.

He could kill Sweets. But Bones wouldn't like that.

He's pretty sure the FBI wouldn't like that either. But he's more worried about her.

Angela surprises him though. Quickly, lips parted, eyes flickering nervously around, she steps forward and brings her arms around him in a tight hug. He flinches a little at the stab of pain this awakens, but mostly, he's just surprised. Startled, at this particular display of affection he hasn't been on the receiving end of in longer than he'd like to admit.

Uncertainly, and a little lost, he returns the embrace with careful measure. He hears her exhale, and some of the tension rushes out of her slight frame, a great weight evaporating from her shoulders.

"What's this for?" he asks at long last, after what seems like an age. He fears the answer, fears to hope. Fears… things. Events, tribulations, metaphorical chasms, walls… everything and nothing. He isn't _sure_.

It's alien and it's _annoying_.

But then Angela Montenegro says something that leaves him… _calm_. He hasn't been calm in a long time. He suddenly feels like a little boy again, being embraced and cherished by a mother, or sister. Just being _cared_ for. His well-being important to someone other than the government, and for very different motivations.

"For being alive," she says.

Immediately, his eyes are brimming with emotion. Something breaks out of his throat like a wave once trapped in a cul-de-sac of boulders and harsh barriers. He's horrified to realize it's a sob, but that feeling quickly passes when her hand begins to smooth a gentle pattern over his back in consolation.

He hugs her tighter.

It's nice to be cared for, valued. Nice to be… missed.

This is the ache that needed mollifying.


	2. To Blame

**Author's Note: Sort of a companion piece to the first oneshot. All other oneshots in this entry will probably be more separate. **

**Speculation on S5 premiere, I guess. But callbacks to S3 and S4 finales. I'm in a very dramatic mood, apparently. Still, not really pleased with the way this came out. Could just be me being an annoying perfectionist again though. **

* * *

"You didn't remember me," she says.

And he can't ignore the accusing edge to her tone.

"You couldn't stop talking about that _stupid_ dream, and didn't remember me."

"The dream you _wrote_, you mean?" he fires back. Frustration curls in overbearing sinews across his broad frame, constricting his lungs, his ability to _think_.

Discomfort burrows into his chest, despair's nasty claws penetrating like thorns in him.

_This isn't fair_, a voice in his head whispers. He tries to ignore it. _She's right, she's right, she's right_, he fires back. She's a genius—isn't she always?

She's not finished though, and is laying it on thick. He'd been waiting for her to just _talk_ to him, begging for it, and now here it is. He just wishes she'd stop _hurting_ him. She's a writer, and very articulate and brilliant with words. And he knows the sharpness her tongue can carry, he just doesn't like it when he's on the receiving end.

All this blameworthiness and responsibility has been getting to him lately. It's affecting his job performance, his mood, his _life_. He's exhausted all the time—she'd been berating him for his apparent and unprofessional fatigue for days now—and that burgeoning weight he always carries on his shoulders has become almost unbearable.

He knows that how she'd usually express deep concern over his uncharacteristic lack of energy is overruled and forgotten because she won't stop being angry with him. Won't _listen_ to him.

He knows he's hurt her, and that twists the knife in his gut already. But, dammit, he's _tired_ of accepting the blame all the time. He can't do it anymore, can't _focus_ on _anything_ important because he's been so miserable all the time. Wracked with self-loathing. That stupid dream—she's right about that—warped his mind and identity for God's sake. He's not sure who _he_ is anymore either.

How is anyone supposed to live like that?

"It isn't my fault," he hears a voice say, and it sounds suspiciously like his own.

She stops talking, and he frowns. He'd been so glad she'd been opening up to him—so relieved—but it kills him when she does it like this. She blinks. "What?"

It must have been him talking then.

"It isn't my fault," he repeats quietly. Terrified of pushing her away, but loathe to be the brunt of her frustration anymore.

She stares at him, abruptly still, lost and hurting expression marring her lovely face like a sad affliction. "You forgot me," she repeats in a faint whisper. Emotion clogs his throat. He wants to hold her, hug her, make it better. But he can't if she won't _listen_.

"I'm sorry for that, so… _sorry_," he tells her, every line of his face dedicated to that apology. He can't begin to imagine the way that would destroy her, after all they've edured together, after everything she's shared with him. It mortifies him that his mind could possibly lose sight of her in any way. He takes a careful step forward. "But it wasn't my fault that I did, and you know that. You heard what the doctor said, and you _know_ how poorly I respond to medication. It wasn't my fault," he has to say it again, a barely-there assertion. Something he's been wanting to say for so long, not just to her, but to everyone, to no one. Some nights he'd wanted to curl in on himself on the floor of his home, and repeat that for hours. For minutes, for anything. He'd never do so, of course. That just wasn't who he was, who he was taught to be.

But the desire was always tempting.

His priest had always told him it wasn't natural for one single man to carry all that burden alone aside from Christ. Humans, by nature, weren't fitted to bear such incredible weight, such suffering.

And he can't do it anymore. He wants to be able to breathe again. And she's always helped him with that. He needs them to be okay again.

He can't be that depressed boy anymore contemplating the worth of his life in the shelter of his garage. Blamed for everything by his father and others for their own troubles. He _can't_.

He has a son. He has this beautiful woman—whatever she is to him. He doesn't know, but he's certain that he needs her in his life in any form that's available. He'll take it all, or as little as she's willing to offer up.

He's on a roll now, or finally tumbling down that perilous ledge like the single stone he feels he's become. He can stand up to her for almost anything but this, or it had been that way. He's never not enjoyed their banter, but when her barbs become sharper because of her own world turned on its axis, that's when things become more painful. He wants to help her, support her, when she doesn't know up from down. Not be the object of her frustrations. That's not how it's supposed to work.

Still, he knows she cares for him. That's the only explanation that makes sense. He dares to believe that maybe she might even feel something more.

"And it wasn't my fault you didn't know I wasn't dead, either."

_There_ it is.

She blinks at the sharp turn of discussion, unprepared for that.

"We never talk about it," he despairs. "You thought I was dead for two weeks, and we never talk about it."

She's so still. He wants to reach out and touch her to make sure she's still _there_, still with him. He can't read her expression, her thoughts. He's been so out of it lately he isn't _himself_. He can't perform things like he used to. He wants that back. He wants to _know_ her again.

"You should have called me." Her ever-ready response to each time he'd dared broach the subject. That had always signified the end of the discussion and, after a while, he'd finally stopped bringing it up.

But he couldn't do that anymore.

"Bones, I wasn't even _conscious_ for most of that time. I was in a bed in the middle of nowhere with dozens of tubes coming out of me, recovering from a _gunshot_ wound," he reminds almost hysterically. "I hardly even knew what the hell was going on with _me_, other than I was to be part of some national security operation. I didn't know why you weren't there with me, why Parker wasn't there.

When I could finally form half a sentence together, they explained things more clearly and I made a list. I couldn't just not call you, I couldn't call my son, my family, my friends. _No one_. The next day they told me everyone on that list was informed. I had no idea you didn't know."

She isn't saying anything, so he continues more gently.

"You think that if I'd had any idea you believed I was dead, I wouldn't have made every effort—moved mountains—to get into contact with you?" He lets the question permeate the air, lets it sink in. Because he wants to know her answer. He needs to know if that's what she'd really believed of him, _thinks_ of him even now. That he could really _do that_ to her without hating himself in the process.

She still hasn't said anything, and that same unreadable expression continues to assume her every vibrant feature. Her eyes are just as unreadable, but there's a film of wetness over their surface.

He really could kill Sweets. But dammit, he kind of liked the kid.

Still... he could.

His heart sinks at her lack of response, and his burdened shoulders sag even more. He shakes his head in defeat, expression torn. "Do you really think…?" He sighs, and looks away from her because he has to. He can't meet those eyes for once. "Don't you know me better than that?"

He couldn't stand it if she forgot who he was, too.

It's so quiet where they are, where they stand—just feet from each other. His throat catches, and he forcibly blinks away the unshed tears forming rebelliously in his eyes, blurring his vision. Not caring anymore how she sees him, but desperate to know what she thinks of him, he reaffirms their eye contact.

"Or do you still think I'm a loser?"

She inhales quietly a little as if struck. The profound intensity in her eyes now becomes almost too much. She'd been about to speak, but had been startled into silence by his words.

He suddenly won't look at her now, stung by her lack of response just like he'd been in the observatory room that day. Aching, appalled by his fear of her opinion of him, she steps over to him and takes his hand.

Tells him, finally, "You're not a loser."

As easy as a lightswitch, he can breathe again.


End file.
